Dimensions of science capital: exploring its potential for understanding students’ science participation

ABSTRACT

As concerns about participation rates in post-compulsory science continue unabated, considerable research efforts have been focused on understanding and addressing the issue, bringing various theoretical lenses to bear on the problem. One such conceptual lens is that of ‘science capital’ (science-related forms of social and cultural capital), which has begun to be explored as a tool for examining differential patterns of aspiration and participation in science. This paper continues this line of work, attempting to further refine our conceptualisation of science capital and to consider potential insights it might offer beyond existing, related constructs. We utilise data from two surveys conducted in England as part of the wider Enterprising Science project, a broader national survey and a more targeted survey, completed by students from schools generally serving more disadvantaged populations. Logistic regression analyses indicated that science capital was more closely related than cultural capital to science aspirations-related outcome variables. In addition, further analyses reflected that particular dimensions of science capital (science literacy, perceived transferability and utility of science, family influences) seem to be more closely related to anticipated future participation and identity in science than others. These patterns held for both data sets. While these findings are generally in alignment with previous research, we suggest that they highlight the potential value of science capital as a distinct conceptual lens, which also carries particular implications for the types of interventions that may prove valuable in considering ways to address disparities in science engagement and participation.

KEYWORDS:

• Science capital
• participation
• survey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

*General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is the last point at which students are required to study science in England. GCSE exams are sat when students are approximately 16 years old.

1. We fully acknowledge that these characteristics and terms are problematic and contested. However, collecting such data is helpful in providing an overview of the sample and in enabling us to explore how science capital may be unevenly distributed among groups. In addition, the scale of the survey (as well as the ages of the individuals completing it) necessarily precludes a more nuanced collection of data.

2. Items were initially weighted according to their theoretical centrality to the notion of science capital (for instance, having a parent who worked in science was weighted more heavily than having a neighbour who worked in science). We then compared these with a weighting derived from the logistic regression (which indicated which items were stronger predictors of the outcome variable). As the distribution of scores was virtually identical, we decided to keep our initial weightings for clarity and simplicity.

3. That over 40% of students reported being in the top sets suggests that there was some tendency on the part of schools to ask students in top sets to complete the survey. However, we are unable to weight the data for set, as there is no way of knowing what proportion of students, nationally, are in top sets. This situation is further complicated by the fact that different schools have different proportions of students in their top set (some might have two classes of top sets, while others might have one, or three) and different schools place students in sets based on different criteria.

4. These five items were: when I grow up, I would like to be a doctor or work in science; I want to become a scientist; I would like a job that uses science; people who are like me, work in science; and other people think of me as a science person.

5. Ideally, we would have preferred to have multiple measures of science literacy (including items that measured science content knowledge and skills), but this was unfeasible within the constraints of this survey (not least due to the different ages/year groups involved). However, this item does map onto our science capital dimension of science literacy.

6. A principal components analysis was also conducted to explore whether – and if so, how – the items in our measure of science capital grouped together statistically into any interesting or interpretable dimensions. Details are not included due to space limitations but it would seem interesting to note that the four components emerging did map back broadly to key dimensions of science capital, as reflected by the holdall in Figure 1: What science you know and how you think about science (Valuing and understanding science); Who you know (Science-related social capital); What you do (Talking about science; Participation in science-related activities).

7. This does not mean that what people experience in such spaces is irrelevant but rather that other environments may be more influential on science participation and identity (Of course, this is not necessarily surprising, given the relative amounts of time spent in schools and at home, compared with the amount of time spent in designed informal science environments).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by BP.